Derek Jackson

Derek Jackson OBE, DFC, AFC, FRS
Born	Derek Ainslie Jackson (1906-06-23)23 June 1906
Died	20 February 1982(1982-02-20) (aged 75) Lausanne, Switzerland
Education	Rugby School
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Known for	Atomic physics
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth John ​ ​ (m. 1931; div. 1935)​ Pamela Mitford ​ ​ (m. 1936; div. 1951)​ Janetta Woolley ​ ​ (m. 1951; div. 1956)​ Consuelo Eyre ​ ​ (m. 1957; div. 1959)​ Barbara Skelton ​ ​ (m. 1966; div. 1967)​ Marie Christine Reille ​ ​ (m. 1968)​
Parents	Charles James Jackson (father) Ada Elizabeth Williams (mother)
Awards	Fellow of the Royal Society
Scientific career
Fields	Spectroscopy
Institutions	Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford
Doctoral advisor	Frederick A. Lindemann
Military career
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Air Force
Unit	No. 604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron
Conflicts	World War II
Awards	DFC, AFC

Derek Ainslie Jackson, OBE, DFC, AFC, FRS (23 June 1906 – 20 February 1982) was a British physicist.

Biography

Derek Jackson was born in 1906, the son of Welsh businessman Sir Charles Jackson. He was one of a pair of twins; his twin brother was Charles Vivian Jackson (1906–1936), known as Vivian. Derek was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first in part I of the natural sciences tripos and graduated with honours in 1927. Jackson showed early promise in the field of spectroscopy under the guidance of Professor Frederick Lindemann, making the first quantitative determination of a nuclear magnetic spin using atomic spectroscopy to measure the hyperfine structure of caesium. His scientific research at Oxford did not, however, interfere with his other great passion – steeplechase riding – which led him from the foxhunting field to his first ride in the Grand National of 1935. A keen huntsman, he took up the sport again after the war, riding in two more Nationals, in 1947 and 1948.

In World War II, Jackson distinguished himself in the RAF, making an important scientific contribution to Britain's air defences and to the bomber offensive. He flew more than a thousand hours as a navigator, many of them in combat in night-fighters, with No. 604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron based at RAF Middle Wallop. He was decorated with the DFC, AFC and OBE. This war record stands in contrast to his stated desire at the war's inception to keep Britain out of fighting Germany. For the rest of his life, Jackson, appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947, lived as a tax exile in Ireland, France and Switzerland. He continued his spectroscopic work in France at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, and was made a chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.

A "rampant bisexual", Jackson was married six times, and also lived for three years with Angela Culme-Seymour, the half-sister of Janetta Woolley, one of his wives. The others included a daughter of Augustus John, Pamela Mitford (one of the Mitford sisters), a princess, and several femmes fatale including Barbara Skelton (in whose obituary in The Independent is noted her remark that it was "not for love that (she) married Professor Jackson", he being identified as "the millionaire son of the founder of the News of the World").

References

Secondary sources